When certain borrowing and taxation commitments have already been made, how does Rachel Reeves, potentially Britain’s next chancellor, plan to fund public services like the NHS? Spoiler - it gets heated 👀 Full interview available on our new Leading YouTube channel.

Full video interview here 👉

Very interesting to see Reeves’ confidence and character come across on the pod. I feel she can appear a little robotic on camera but she’s not fucking around here.

Personally I feel the substance of Rory's question was reasonable and deserved an answer that wasn't effectively "you're a Tory so I don't need to answer you". As an unaligned person myself I felt that was dismissal of someone not from "her tribe".

She actually has no plan. It is also so depressing that no one is talking about lowering demand on the NHS by improving health and fitness and researching the causes of chronic disease and prescription drug addiction.

This is why I can’t stand the “Sensible”/“moderate” Tories like Stewart. New Labour was the last government to run a budget SURPLUS - for 3/4 years. The deficit was kept under 4% every year until the financial crash. STEWART’S government ran much larger deficits with much lower growth, so now our debt pile has almost doubled - plus nothing works. Even the EU’s (widely criticised) fiscal compact kept structural deficits within 3% - a number which too often prevents essential long-term investment in infrastructure and services that are necessary for growth - but Labour easily averaged below that across their 13 years; it’s RORY and his mates who didn’t. And we’ve seen the consequences of false economies and low investment growth models: a depleted public realm and NOTHING WORKS. And… YOU DON’T EVEN PAY OFF YOUR DEBT, YOU MAKE IT WORSE.

I'm not sure it's fair to say that "Gordon Brown borrowed an enormous amount of money and then the 2008 financial crisis came around". But New Labour did enjoy a dividend from economic growth and falling defence spending, neither of which seems likely in the near future.

The current government borrowed money because of a pandemic during which taxpayers subsided employment and businesses for a couple of years & then provided support during an energy crisis instigated by Russia. Reeves is at best disingenuous by equating PFI with Covid spending.

Clearly Rachel Reeves doesn’t like to talk about maths or the simple answer if they do what they plan to do they have to rise taxes by huge number… but one way another there is no other solution…

Uniparty. How much did you borrow? No, how much did you borrow? Same policies. Neo-liberal globalism that has destroyed our industrial and manufacturing base. Let's start making things again and reduce our balance of trade in Goods. Start paying our way in the world.